Class Notes: 9/22/2014

Pare Lorentz

Triumph of the will

Reading Response...
Advocate
Filmmakers
Historical Event.s

Advicate - Flatherty - Grierson, Leni Weisenthal

Holocaust Nazi WWII
Joseph Goebbels

Prosecutor---
Thorndike
Major use of archive footage
Pioneered freeze frame of super infrared arrows
Akira - Wosaki
Aftermath footage of atomic bombs.

Docmentary Notes: Hit So Hard

Synopsis (Wikipedia)
Hit So Hard is a 2011 American documentary film directed by P. David Ebersole. The film details the life and near death story of Patty Schemel, drummer of the seminal '90s alternative rock band Hole, and charts her early life, music career, and spiral into crack cocaine addiction.^[1] The film weaves together Hi8 video footage Schemel recorded while on Hole's 1994-95 world tour with contemporary interviews with her, bandmates Courtney Love,Eric Erlandson, and Melissa Auf der Maur, as well as her family members. The film also features interviews with other female drummers and musicians, including Nina Gordon, Kate Schellenbach, Gina Schock, Debbi Peterson, and Phranc.

Notes:

This is a fantastic documentary that follows drummer Patty Schemel through personal videos, and interviews (both past and future) with people who have been connected to her throughout her life. Patty was the drummer for the 90s band, Hole and also someone who has struggled with drug addiction.

The film gives a behind-the-scenes look at what the music scene was like in the early 90s. Schemel was obviously close with Courtney Love, but she was also close to her late husband, Kurt Cobain. The film provides viewers with extremely intimate videos of Kurt and Courtney when their daughter was first born. I was shocked by the video, because this was unlike any footage I had ever seen before. They seemed "normal" (or as normal as you can be). Patty was determined to get through life, but drug addiction kept her spiraling for many years.

While I was very interested in the documentary because of the fact I was a big fan of those bands in the early 90's, I wonder if this would be interesting to others who aren't fans of Hole or Nirvana. It was a "who's who" of interviews in terms of the alternative music scene. I enjoyed it for the intimate interviews, but it did feel at times like a VH1 special.

I feel that this film could have felt even more personal if Patty was behind the scenes more. It felt like someone was doing "This is Your Life" with her own personal affects. It was Patty who shot most of the broll that shows Hole on the road, etc. I felt that if the director worked closer with her they could have built a different, more intimate piece.

Class Notes: Monday, Sept 15

Documentary>Short Histort
Creative Assignment> Finish 2 paragraphs.
Sept 29 - No Clas


Doc series of technical movements.

What is documentary?
-Docs are about real life but not real life
-Portraits of real life using real life as raw material
-Constructed by Artist & Technicians who make subjective decisions about what story to tell and to whom and for what purpose
stray about real life with claims to truthfulness

Nature of the beast
-Doc shifts over time w/ business and market pressures
technological and formal innovations
-genre always has two crtitical elements that are in tension
representation and reality
throughout history, makers, critics, and viewers about what constitutes trustworthy storytelling.
The early conventions of the genre often arose from the need to convince views of authenticity.

Many journalists came to documentary... a lot from news depts.

early docs had to convince views of authenticity.

Emerging From History
----
Emerged awkwardly out of early practice in the form of educationals, actualities, interest films, travel films
- Documentary is the creative treatment of reality - John Grierson
-Documentary was always imagined as having civic potential and tied to the public.
Documentary is grand in real life & makes claims telling us something worth knowing

-Why should I spent 10-15 min looking at your film. What are you telling me about the human condition?

--Documentary Movements

--- The Prophet: early inventors of cinema; included every of from showmen to scientist. who felt the need to document some phenomenon or action. 1880 and beyond. "Poetry of the ordinary"
Lumiere.
-- The explorer: Robert Flaherty, new worlds, beyond our access... Nannook of the north
"The cheerful happy go lucky  Eskimo"

-- The reporter: Dziego Vertov "Man with a Movie Camera" heavily influenced by futuris...

stressed construvtion in montage
 - The Painter - 1920s artist infiltrated film world. Interested in light and texture
cineclubs
Berlin Symphony an example.
-usually played with live music - didn't always have the same music.
"Possible birth of poetic documentary"
-- The Advocate - - John Grierson/Father of ...
Documentary has civic potential. Art as hammer.

---
Workers + Film + Photo League
Pare Lorentz - Voice of God Narration
Clip - Drifters - early 1920s

George Stoney - trying to get people to support the new deal.

The River ... respond to technical demand ..

VO narration was style...
Very few had location sound.

What wats/what aesthetic contend
Influencesthis film.

Documentary Notes: Monterey Pop

Synopsis from Wikipedia:
Monterey Pop is a 1968 concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles. The painter Brice Marden has an "assistant camera" credit, and Bob Neuwirth, who figured prominently in Pennebaker's Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back, acted as stage manager. Titles for the film were by the illustrator Tomi Ungerer. Featured performers include Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin,Jefferson Airplane, Hugh Masekela, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, The Mamas & the Papas, The Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose namesake set his guitar on fire, broke it on the stage, then threw the neck of his guitar in the crowd at the end of "Wild Thing".

Interesting article: https://www.scribd.com/doc/149392592/Monterey-Pop-home-video-D-A-Pennebaker-interview

_____
I watched this on the way to STL with the MFAs. It was something that kept everyone quiet on the 2 hours.  ... 

Notes from the documentary. 
----
The colors are gorgeous. Lots of load in to the festival.
Long shots of the people coming into the festival. It's a great slice of history because it was one of the first large festivals of music in the US. The clothes. . .the performers...
How many cameras did they have for each performance? The Mamas and the Papas.
Was this filmed in 16mm?

They definitely captured the intensity of the concert.
Long shots of the crowd enjoying the music.
I like the different sequence of edits... the different crowd shots... heads bopping... feet tapping.

-----
Afterwards

I really appreciate the way that Pennebaker produced this documentary. It is truly a moment in time. I feel that this concert film/documentary is one that many people have looked towards in regards to concert films. I think about one of the first music docs that I ever watched was Truth or Dare when I was younger. It was a "behind the scenes" look at Madonna and her world tour. In that film she provided a behind the scenes look at her tour and the way that she relates with her dancers and others in her world.  While Pennebaker's doc wasn't quite the same, it feels that it could have been an influence to this film.

Documentary Notes: Paradise Lost 3

Synopsis (From Wikipedia):

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is a 2011 documentary film and sequel to the films Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. The three films chronicle the arrest, 18-year imprisonment, and eventual release of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, otherwise known as the West Memphis Three. The films, directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, are considered to play a substantial role in generating publicity, awareness, and support for the innocence of the West Memphis 3.^[1]

My notes:

Intense beginning. Bringing people up to speed.

First part of the movie reminds people of the story. How does this compare?

Traditional documentary.

Lots of talking heads.

Interesting how the filmmakers stayed with this story for over 20 years.

--

Also interesting commentary on media… and what the role of media is in this situation. Hysteria about cults and Satanism

How could these kids get a fair trial.

Interesting use of multiple codecs. 4X3 media was shown inside a black box.

--Talked to people who did stuff…activists… foundation to raise money for west Memphis 3.

This film is really interesting.. . especially how the filmmakers followed the story for 20+ years. They gathered a lot of interest in the story with their documentaries and it started a grassroots campaign to get the kids help. However, over the last year after the Memphis 3 were released, another movie was made.  West of Memphis: http://www.sonyclassics.com/westofmemphis/

This was with the help of Peter Jackson and his wife, Fran Lewis. They produced a movie with Damien Echels (one of the Memphis 3) and his wife Lorri Davis (who he met while in jail). She found out about him through the Paradise Lost documentaries.

While I haven’t watched the film, West of Memphis, I watched the trailer and was shocked by how much this movie lifted off of the Paradise Lost trilogy. Using footage from PL, they craft their narrative about what “really happened”. I am having issues with this film because it felt like Peter Jackson used this film on the backs of Paradise Lost. Why create another film about this? I can understand that Damien Echels might want to tell his story. That makes sense, but lifting footage directly from Paradise Lost, and also other somewhat unethical tactics that were used in this documentary is what is keeping me from watching this.  It would be interesting to pursue this further about the ethics of documentary. . . to be dealt with at a later date.

Documentary Notes: My Doc Watching Schedule :)

9/8/2014 - Paradise Lost Purgatory

9/15/2014 -  Monterey Pop

9/22/2014 - Hit So Hard

9/28/2014  Hava Nagila The Movie

10/6/2014 - Bible Quiz

10/20/2014 - The Punk Singer

10/27/2014 -  Mana Ka Mana

11/3/2014 - Walk Away Renee

11/10/2014 -  After Tiller

11/17/2014 -  Dancing in Jaffa

11/24/2014 - Caucus

12/1/2014 -  Call Me Kuchu